Aired on PBS-TV's American Masters (after a theatrical run) the homage to durable actress-singer-dancer Rita Moreno was partially produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also appears and joins those paying tribute to the subject for her scope and "EGOT" achievement of being a show-business multi-award winner—possessing an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy. That the Puerto Rico-born entertainer also broke barriers as a Hispanic female performer, hailed here by Miranda, Eva Longoria, George Chakaris, Hector Elizondo, Morgan Freeman, et al. is an equal if not greater part of the portrait.
Moreno won her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1959's classic West Side Story under director Robert Wise; here she is shown turning 89, concurrently with filming a returning role in Steven Spielberg's remake of the iconic musical (it is to director Mariem Pérez Riera's credit that it does not become a promo piece for the Spielberg blockbuster). Moreno's career is truly a sweeping one, starting with her singing as a teenager to US soldiers departing for WWII.
In Hollywood, a young Rita experienced the good (watching Gene Kelly make Singin' in the Rain), bad and ugly of the studio system of Technicolor's golden age—sexual harassment, rape, abortion, being cast as stereotyped, dusky "island girls" and shallow pretty faces, and being packaged on arranged dates with male stars for photo ops. Her tumultuous love affair with Marlon Brando was real (and initiated Moreno into the realm of political activism), but Brando's controlling narcissism brought Moreno to attempt suicide. Even the heroine's famously decades-long marriage to a stable, non-showbiz spouse (cardiologist Leonard Gordon) is recalled in terms less romantic and more controlling.
The now-widowed, vivacious Moreno, liberated in more ways than one, has lived to see the harsh spotlight shown on moviedom's ingrained sexual harassment, and witnessed better roles offered to minority performers and Hispanic characters (of her Oscar-winning role as Anita in West Side Story, Moreno said she was appalled by the negative lyrics insulting Puerto Rico—but in the original drafts they were even worse).
Unfamiliar viewers might assume Rita Moreno was the lone Hispanic/Latina star of the silver screen, when in fact Dolores del Rio, Lupe Velez, Katy Jurado, and Linda Crystal also had marquee value. The documentary instead compares Moreno with the iconic actress-dancer Rita Hayworth, who likewise went through ordeals of studio manipulation, forced plastic surgery, and bad relationships, and whose ultimately tragic life arc might well have been Rita Moreno's. A strongly recommended title for general film collections, not to mention those with strong Hispanic elements. Aud: H, C, P.